Turkey massacre - the Hasdal scandal

January 2011 - Turkey, Istanbul. Hastal Shelter. The entire event was caught on camera as part of an on-going investigation by Let’s Adopt! into the atrocities commited by Kadir Topbaş Hasdal shelter and the Municipality’s well documented practice of dumping dogs in the forests and deserted locations.

The events of that morning, together with undercover footage obtained by Let’s Adopt! proves, beyond any shade of doubt, the blatant disregard for the Law by Kadir Topbaş team and the constant and sustained lies of the Municipality to the Press and the general public.These atrocities are unfortunately all too common in enclosures across the EU and Europe - where there are abandoned stray animals - there are cruelty to animals - then abandoned companion animals are often seen as vermin.

The following images were recorded secretly at one of those shelters, the Hasdal "Rehabilitation Centre" in Istanbul last June (2010). The images and sounds speak for themselves and give us an insight into the workings of Kadir Topbas team. Their cruelty and complete disregard of any basic human principles sends shrivers down our spines.

There is absolutely no difference between this video and similar documents coming out of China. In the meantime, Kadir Topbas, the person responsible for this "operation" as well for the subsequent dumping of thousands of animals in the forests of Istanbul continues denying any illegal activity in Istanbul Municipal shelters. We let you be the judge... watch and listen.

The Volunteers speak: Hasdal smells blood ...... as soon as I stepped in, I felt it .....

This dog was hit by a car and had been brought in this condition to the Hasdal shelter where the employees left the dog without medical care. The dog has later been adopted and lives now happily in Germany. Here is a picture of a paralyzed dog crawling along the sewers.....there are no words for this. Where there are stray animals - there are cruelty This picture alone gives you an idea of the brutality employed at the Hasdal shelter. The dog in the picture refuses to get out of the cell for God knows what procedure or torture and the employed force the stick with such brutality that it breaks the animal jaw......Imagine the pain......Imagine your dog gets lost and he is found by the Hasdal team.

This is the way animals are handled by the employees at the Hasdal shelter. Even the smallest terrier, sick or old animal is handled with a pipe and extreme violence. Animals are dragged through the floor pulling by the neck. The dog arrived to the shelter victim of a traffic accident. The vets (who refuse to ever touch an animal with their own hands) pulled the dog from the neck using a rope leaving a gruesome trail of blood behind. The dog was dumped on the cage, the door slammed close over his tail..... He never had a name.....He died due to substandard medical practices and lack of care. His body was taken out of the cell and left laying on the corridor waiting to be collected. He remained there for hours. The puppy desperately tries to get a bit of fresh air by sticking his nose under the heavy steel door. In the next few days he will be operated in atrocious conditions and dumped in the forest where he will die of starvation. Ismail Ay, the veterinarian at Kadir Topbaş Hasdal shelter was happy that day. None of the dogs he had neutered the day before had died on his operation table. A rare occasion considering that usually about 15 to 20 dogs a week die at Hasdal due to incorrect veterinary procedures. Suddenly the volunteers alerted him that one of the females was experiencing massive lost of blood. Clearly annoyed, Ismail refused to move from his table to go help the animal that was quickly going into shock in the recovery cage. Instead he told the workers to bring the dog to him using their usual catch pole. Blood was everywhere. The dog was too weak to even move or stand and was being dragged through the shelter floor. Volunteers tried to intervene but the workers stopped them saying: Don’t teach us what do to. This is how it’s done here!…. The volunteers were pushed aside. The dog died whilst being dragged from the neck on her way to Ismail. The tight rubber band around her neck increased the speed of the blood loss. The total killing rate of Ismail Ay went up by one that morning… more would follow in the afternoon, and the next day… and the next. 20 dogs a week die at Kadir Topbaş Hasdal shelter due to incorrect veterinary procedures alone. To this you must add the thousands being abandoned deep in the forest by the Municipality team. If this is not the work of the worst and cruelest vets in the world I really don’t know how to call it. This is one of the most heartbreaking stories of Hasdal. This german shepherd arrived with small injuries in his legs caused by thorns and grass of the kind you encounter in the fields/forest. They were very painful, the dog couldn’t stand on his own, but they were not life threatening. Knowing that Ismail Ay, the veterinarian of Hasdal would NOT bother treating those injuries and that the infection would quickly spread through the body we requested to take the animal to a private clinic immediately. This request was refused. Ismail Ay wanted to deal with the case himself… he then proceeded to drop the dog in an isolation cage and told the volunteers to stay away. Days later even Ismail Ay was horrified when he entered the cage. The most disgusting smell inmediately hit him on the face and spread throughout the shelter. It’s was the smell of rotten flesh and death. The dog lied there in a pool of blood ozzing from his legs. He was howling in absolute pain. Massive infection had spread throughout the body. Ismail Ay then finally gave an order: Take that disgusting dog away from here! The dog was rushed to a private clinic where he died soon afterwards. There was nothing anyone could do. He died a horrifying death caused by the professional negligence of Ismail Ay, the veterinarian at Hasdal.Turkish Municipal vets: worst in the world? This is the result of the butchery operations usually conducted in animal shelters across Turkey. Those are just three cases. The horrors take place all over the country. It's unbelievable. Vets neuter animals in such a hurry that they don't even sew the wound properly. They just sew it as they sew a blanket. There some body parts forgotten in the stomachs of the dogs. They neuter all the dogs, young or old, small or big, it does not matter. There was a male dog about 3 months that had been neutered. There were dead puppies in the waste and the mother was walking around with her breasts full of milk. Mothers with pups were kept in the same cage with big kangals. In one part of the shelter, they found a dead dog which probably had died 4-5 days ago because there was a stinking smell and worms under the dead body of the dog. There is shit everywhere. The cages were not clean. All the food and shit mix together... This is what you see in Kadir Topbaş Hasdal shelter if you arrive there early in the morning before the municipal workers have collected all the bodies, an endless stream of death caused by incorrect medical procedures, neglect and brutality. And how does the Hasdal shelter disposes the bodies? very easy… you put them in a garbage bag and thrown them in the trash can, no doubt many of them still alive. To this must add the dogs Kadir Topbas Hasdal releases in the forest die shortly of hunger and disease contracted at the shelter. None of those thousands of deaths are reported.

Turkey has finally awaken to the scandal of the inside dealings of the Istanbul Municipality and the criminal activity at the Istanbul Hasdal shelter (January 2011). The scandal is shaking the system...In the back of the Istanbul Municipality's van shaken and terrified, 5 stray dogs violently hit the walls with each bump of the road. The barks and screams can be heard by every villager en route. Mila – Dumped and near death on the Roadside. This is one of the dogs that was lying next to Mila on the fields... A recent mother completely covered in mange. Her Tag number 003776 Chip number 978.101080586911 Taken from Arnavutkoy, Dumped to Örünçlü Nakkaşyolu (Silivri) on 10.01.2011 at 10:53 AM with IBB car licence number 2724 WITH the heath report "good condition" just like Mila, they were in the same van... A recent mother completely covered in mange., dumped to Örünçlü Nakkaşyolu WITH the heath report "good condition" just like Mila, they were in the same van... Taken from Arnavutkoy, Dumped to Örünçlü Nakkaşyolu WITH the heath report "good condition" just like Mila, they were in the same van..... Pasha died in this gruesome manner because he was dumped by the side of the road by Kadir Topbas team, dumping dogs by the side of the road is the usual practice of the Istanbul Municipality.....their way to get rid of stray dogs. The white tag is the tag of the Hasdal dogs. Pasha was neutered and dumped on the side of the highway...... This is how the forests of Istanbul look. Completely filled with the thousands of dogs abandoned there by Kadir Topbas and his team. Every week, teams of volunteers have to go and feed them. Many are extremely sick.

Sunday, February 20th, 2011 - SUNDAY's ZAMAN: Activists appeal to mayor to stop practice of dog-dumping About two weeks ago a group of around 1,000 protestors met in front of the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality building to protest what they claim were pictures taken at the municipality’s Hasdal Rehabilitation Center for Animals. For most active animal rights protectors in Turkey, who are very much used to death, bloodshed and pain, not unlike people who live in a war zone, the pictures come as no surprise. However, for the larger animal community and ordinary concerned citizens, they were too much to bear. This was why so many showed up to the demonstration. Animal rights group Let’s Adopt! released the pictures online shortly before organizing the protest. The pictures are too graphic to publish or even describe in most publications, showing a shelter in deplorable condition. A golden retriever lying in a pool of blood, bodies of dead dogs strewn around the shelter grounds, both inside cages and out. They have also released pictures of alleged İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality vehicles dumping dogs from the rehabilitation center into İstanbul’s forests. The group says an animal activist whose name they refuse to reveal in the print press hired a private eye who monitored every move of the Hasdal employees to initially gather sufficient evidence to be used in court against the municipality to prove its illegal practice of dumping dogs collected from all over İstanbul in the city’s forests. That is how the additional pictures and video footage showing cruelty toward the shelter animals were obtained. Denial is no river The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality has long denied that it dumps dogs in forests. It has done the same about the recent scandal, saying it always returns animals to wherever they are taken from. All the officials we have spoken to say the pictures are part of a malicious campaign. However, the experience of volunteers working at the shelter and dozens of people feeding starving dogs with ear-tags showing they have been neutered and vaccinated in İstanbul’s shelters tell a different story. In response to an official query about the situation at Hasdal, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Veterinary Department said their operations are done according to Animal Protection Law No. 5199, which prescribes returning homeless animals to the spots they were removed from. The metropolitan municipality’s statement also claimed that their practices have been observed by international organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PETA Germany, however, says the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality has been untruthful. PETA confirms they have thanked the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality for its neutering operations but says it had warned it against dumping animals into the forests. The group also said it would not vouch for the daily operations at the municipal shelter and requested that the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality not use PETA’s name in official statements again without its knowledge. Then, of course, is the undeniable presence of hundreds of dogs - ear-tagged by various municipalities - in İstanbul’s forests. Groups of animal activists visit Bolluca every week to feed confused dogs that once wandered the streets of urban İstanbul, hoping that some of their caretakers would somehow find them. No one can deny that truckloads of animals have been brought here, something no ordinary citizen can easily do. The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality also says it works together with shelter volunteers, but most volunteers have a different opinion. A long-time volunteer at the shelter, Kebire Bozkurt, said: “It is a very, very difficult place. Hasdal employees do not like volunteers in the least and treat them as lowly workers. We try to find homes for the dogs, but they put up many difficulties. Hasdal is the last place I would wish for a dog to go to, trust me.” Although she didn’t take the secret pictures, Bozkurt was key in exposing the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality shelter, talking to the press and giving interviews to municipalities. ‘Mr. Mayor should hear us’ But why has Mayor Kadir Topbaş, normally an active mayor applauded for his service to the city, not lifted a finger? This could not be confirmed because the mayor and his first secretary were abroad to attend a climate conference, but according to volunteer Bozkurt, the reason behind the mayor’s lack of action is that he is not aware of the extent of the situation. “I think Mr. Mayor does not know what’s going on at the Hasdal Rehabilitation Center. I’m sure he will eventually do what needs to be done, so I wait.” A municipality officer who asked not to be named also has the same suspicions, saying they were not sure if the mayor was “fully informed” about what is actually going on. So many unwanted dogs with more and more coming, what is a mayor to do? According to Let’s Adopt! the municipality needs to make radical changes through the correct implementation of the “Neuter and Return” program, working with rescue groups instead of fighting them, and creating a comprehensive adoption program supported by a real community of volunteers. But the first thing he needs to do is find a compassionate shelter director who will be able to run the shelter both efficiently and humanely. They say they and other animal rights groups are willing to help.Where the animal rights movement has failed Lawyer Ahmet Kemal Şenpolat, head of the Animal Rights Federation (HAYTAP), notes that the shelter system in Turkey is extremely problematic by its very nature. “Animal rehabilitation centers have unfortunately been established for animal-haters and for animal-hating municipalities. But the purpose of forming these establishments [by law] was to serve all animals who are unable to take care of themselves. There is no hotline you can call after 5 p.m., no ambulances. No municipality has a desk you can approach when an animal is hit by a car.” He said the practice of dumping animals in forests is a modernized and updated version of throwing dogs on islands near İstanbul to starve, a practice seen in Ottoman times. “The problem is not being solved. It is just being moved from one location to another.” Şenpolat says, however, that as long as the source of the problem - such as uncontrolled breeding, the ease of importing and selling animals in pet shops or online, the lack of a program to teach dog owners the importance of neutering, an absence of laws that hold dog owners responsible for dogs dumped and the lack of legislation limiting dog breeding - is not addressed, both animals and people will continue to suffer. The HAYTAP president’s words should be a wake-up call for Turkey’s animal activists. The country’s animal movement has been able to pass legislation - Law No. 5199 - that clearly states animals taken from a certain location should be returned to it, although there is obviously an unwillingness on the part of municipalities to abide by it. Passing such a law would be impossible to do in most countries. However, they failed at passing legislation that would be easier for lawmakers to accept and municipalities to abide by. Law No. 5199 is good, but it is completely alone. It needs the help of other good laws that will concentrate on efforts towards limiting new dog arrivals - by birth or by importation. Read all the informative text and links here: KADIR TOPBAS & the SCANDAL at ISTANBUL HASDAL SHELTER / Massacre uncoveredImages like these are going on all over Istanbul today. This is the massacre in Tuzla, a district of Istanbul - another cruel story that repeats itself all over Turkey and Europe.